The Early Years of Demining in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Transfer to National Ownership by Ian Mansfield
share the presidency on a rotating basis, and elections were to be held to elect a parliament. Each entity was allowed to keep its own army, but a large, international military force called the Stabilization Force (SFOR) was deployed throughout the country to enforce the peace. The Landmine Problem As the fighting was intended to drive people out of their homes, landmines were used extensively throughout the conflict to keep people away from villages. Large, front-line areas developed along the boundaries between different ethnic Ian Mansfield stands in front of damaged apartments in Sarajevo.
groups, and mines were also laid in vast numbers to protect
Photo courtesy of the author.
these areas.
A
Herzegovina were located along the 1,000 km (621 mi) long
The majority of the known minefields in Bosnia and fter the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords on 14 December 1995, the newly formed Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina requested
that the United Nations set up and manage a mine clearance program. However, it soon became clear that the government should take responsibility and ownership of the program. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina took place between April 1992 and October 1995. While the causes of the war and what happened are extremely complicated, Bosnian Serbs encircled Sarajevo and imposed a blockade, while ‘ethnic cleansing’ operations were undertaken by all sides in towns and villages throughout the country. As a result of the Dayton Peace Accords, the fighting stopped, and Bosnia and Herzegovina was to remain one country; however, it was divided into two entities: the Republika
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Inter-Entity Boundary Line, which divided Republika Srpska. The Muslim Croat Federation Records of over 18,000 minefields were available but toward the end of the war, many mines were laid without being recorded, and it was estimated that these maps represented only 50 to 60 percent of the minefields in the country. At the time when the Dayton Peace Accords came into effect, many believed that there could be up to one million landmines laid in Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with an unknown number of unexpoloded ordnance (UXO) waiting to be cleared. Accurate casualty figures were difficult to obtain, but there seemed to be general agreement that about 50 civilians were killed or injured by landmines or UXO every month since the end of the war in 1995.1 Initial Response
Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The country was
In January 1996, the fledgling Bosnian government request-
to be governed by the Council of Ministers, consisting of one
ed United Nations’ assistance with setting up a mine action
representative each from the Bosnian Croats, Bosnian Serbs,
program. The responsibility fell to the United Nations Mission
and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). These representatives would
in Bosnia Herzegovina (UNMIBH), which established the
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